


World's End

by bauble



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 01:40:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18928723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bauble/pseuds/bauble
Summary: Eames can't let Arthur go.





	World's End

"You should shoot me," Arthur says.

"This isn't a dream," Eames replies. "You won't wake up."

"That's the idea." There's a wound on Arthur's wrist. Small thing, barely a knick—nothing like the enflamed bite-marks plastered across the news. "We both know where this is headed."

Eames scours Arthur's face for signs of sickness. Arthur looks pale, but otherwise handsome and well. "We don't know that you've been infected--"

"I do." Arthur tugs his sleeve up, tucks the wound away. "I can—feel it."

Eames swallows. "Somnacin in the bloodstream slows the transformation." 

"Slows, doesn't stop." Arthur stares out the window at the desolate, blasted landscape. "Better to shoot me now, while I can—control myself."

"They're developing a cure."

Arthur touches Eames' cheek. "Not in time for me."

* * * * *

It starts slow, symptoms like a common cold. Fatigue, difficulty focusing, slight fever. "Quarantine," Arthur says when Eames climbs into bed. "I could expose you—"

"Oral transmission." Eames straddles Arthur. "As long as you don't bite me."

Arthur traces Eames' lower lip with his thumb, eyes dark and sad. "We shouldn't."

Eames kisses down the center of Arthur's chest, his skin warm and unblemished. He takes Arthur's cock in his mouth—using a condom, Arthur insists—and tries to block out everything else: the dread, the fear, the desperation.

After Arthur comes, Eames' gaze is drawn back to Arthur's wrist. He wants to put his mouth to it, suck the sickness out like a poison. He's not sure he'd care if it poisoned him as well.

* * * * *

"We can extend time by dreaming. Go three levels down," Eames says. He doesn't add, _or deeper._

"Intravenous connection." Arthur's skin has an unnatural grayish cast. "You could be infected."

"That's none of your concern."

"I rigged the PASIV to deliver a lethal dose of Somnacin," Arthur says, slowly and quietly. "It'll kill me and render the machine unusable."

Eames wants to shake him. "Fuck you."

"Eames." Arthur grabs him, grip like bruising ice. "End this. Everything is—it's all slipping."

* * * * *

Arthur stops looking at Eames. Doesn't look at much in particular, anymore. He doesn't speak.

Eames tries to engage as Arthur falls deeper into catatonia. Questions, cajoling, shouting--even a madcap song and dance. Nothing disturbs that vacant gaze until Eames goes to the kitchen and cooks: steak, bloody and rare.

Eames feeds him two bites before Arthur turns his head away. 

"Not this," Arthur says. 

Eames seizes Arthur in his arms, crushes his nose against Arthur's neck. There's hardly anything left to hold on to, but still Eames wraps himself around Arthur, tries to warm his marble-cold body.

Arthur doesn't seem to notice him there.

* * * * *

"You're a survivor," Arthur says, in a fit of lucidity. "You."

"Yes," Eames replies, even though watching Arthur disappear doesn't feel like surviving; it feels like dying.


End file.
